Fall from grace

The last equestrian statue of former Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco in Madrid is removed. Photograph: AP

They came in the middle of the night to cart him away after sowing a trail of misinformation to throw followers off the scent.

If that sounds sinister, then perhaps it is fittingly so. Madrid's last equestrian statue of Spain's former dictator, General Francisco Franco, was ripped out under the cover of darkness early yesterday morning.

A sign put up on Wednesday beside the 7-metre high bronze monument, which had stood since 1959 outside the environment ministry, had warned of no overnight parking so a lorry could remove part of a building's air conditioning system. But when workmen started chipping away at the statue, the local police twigged it was not the air-con they had come for.

Yesterday, protestors gathered around the plinth where the Generalíssimo, who ruled with an iron fist from the civil war of 1936-9 until his death in 1975, had sat astride his mount. Spanish daily El Mundo reported that 700 followers, of all ages, incompatible in most ways but united by two ideas - pride for the dictator and hatred of the socialist government - waved pre-constitutional flags and chanted "viva Franco".

They added a generous dose of "Reds no, reds no!" and "Spain is Christian not Muslim" but really found their voice when the press and TV cameras turned up. "What are you doing here, manipulating dogs?" they shouted. "You've gone to the pink sauce which feeds you." (Anyone baffled by this reference should know the pink sauce, or "salsa rosa", is a reference to the genre of low-brow, sensationalist TV programmes which are ubiquitous in Spain and roughly equates to the gutter press).

Their beef about the press manipulating history is touched on by Antony Beever in this week's Times Literary Supplement who points out the civil war is peculiar among recent conflicts as it has been chronicled more by the losers than winners.

Back in Spain and right-leaning daily ABC reports that the statue's fate was sealed by a Madrid lawyer who asked the city's mayor to take it down because it was incompatible with the capital's Olympic bid.

It now appears the action in the capital may start a purge of Franco statues elsewhere. El Diario Montanes reported today that the mayor of the northern coastal town of Santander said its statue of Franco on horseback would be taken down to allow a car park to be redesigned, and won't be replaced. A fall from grace indeed.